The team first established a long-distance link from a communications tower in downtown Lascahobas to the (semi-rural) EFACAP school. The equipment supporting the long-distance connection — a Ubiquiti RocketM base station, MicroTik router, two FitPC2 servers, and a UniFi nanostation and WiFi antenna — is all powered from the direct current solar system the team set up in August. Once the long-distance link to the school was functional, the team set up multiple point-to-multipoint solar-powered WiFi hotspots across the school’s campus, each consisting of a 30 watt solar panel powering a charge controller, and a UniFi nanostation and WiFi antenna.

After connectivity was established, the IIT team met with the school’s teachers, only two of whom had ever used the Internet before, to instruct them in how to get online, use search tools and a server, and finally, to set up email addresses!